Monday, November 26, 2007

Chatty Airplane Neighbor Day!

The guy sitting next to you on the flight from Portland, Oregon to New York City is a bit talky. You need to send him some signals to let him know that you’d like your privacy. Try body language. “I can hear you now,” say to him. Then stick a knitting needle in your ear until blood pours from your punctured eardrum down your neck. “I can’t hear you now.” If he keeps talking, slam your head against the window until you fall unconscious. If when you wake up he asks you what you dreamed about and then proceeds to tell you his own dreams, rip up your Skymall catalog and start swallowing big hunks of the pages until you have no choice but to throw up all over yourself and him. If he hastens to get some towels from the flight attendant and then wipes your clothes clean so that he can tell you about the time he entered a pie eating contest, reach into his face and pull out his tongue.

When you disembark, your wife will be waiting for you at baggage. You’ll head home, tired and a little worse for wear, and you’ll head to your bedroom to rest. When you pull the covers down, that tongue will be lying on the sheets, wiggling and swerving like it’s trying to finish a sentence.

“You were saying?” you’ll say to the tongue. You and your wife will laugh hysterically. Just because you’re apparently on the receiving end of some sort of supernatural justice for being impatient with people doesn’t mean you can’t laugh about it. Don’t turn around because the man from the plane is behind you and he’s got blood dribbling down his chin onto his shirt.